The Boy I Found in my Basement

Chapter 6

"Hey kid, are you okay?" Christopher asked me, pulling me out of that god awful trance.

"Y-you ran away." I stuttered.

"I don't recall."

I smoothed down my dress and stood up. I paced, everything was making sense. Her going away every weekend, her fights with my dad, her odd protectiveness.

"But you did, I remember. I was five and you were seven. You came out of mom's room crying and vowed that you were running away from home. What did he say to you?" Tears were streaming down my puffy red face as I circled back and forth around the table.

He stopped me from pacing and grabbed me by the hand. "I'm not your brother, I don't know."

"Yes you do. You, you yelled something at him. And at her. You tried to take me with you but I said no. You know, you have to."

The room was clean but the lines were crooked, as if they were on a tilt-a-whirl. My stomach is churning with guilt and disgust. I can feel my mind becoming cluttered and blocked. I can't move on from this thought. I can't move on. I can't move.

"Angelina look at me." He sat me down on the couch.

I looked at his chin, tears bubbling in my eyes. My attitude fit the way I was dressed.

"I am not, have not been, nor will ever be Christopher Luna. My name is Dante Palazzo and I only look like your brother, or so I presume. My mama is from Palermo and my papa is from Sienna. I am a first generation American; my whole purpose in coming here was to have more freedom. Now I wish my old friends could see me, I'm sucking up to a man who is mentally ill and living with his daughter who seems unnerved and nauseated by him but continues to play his game. She lets him treat her like a child who is incapable of independence. She lets him touch her and  undress her. He's mad but we're right behind him. Can't you see it Angelina? By playing his twisted game we're crazy too. We have to lose ourselves to survive." He looked into my eyes while he spoke passionately, spitting while he talked. 

He was sitting on his hands, as if to try not to move them into fists, not with which to hurt me but to hurt my father. I know that I would have let him if I wasn't scared of what Daddy might do back. In that way the boy who I was to call Christopher but was actually named Dante was right. I was still a fearful quiet girl who listened to the instructions of her Daddy even though her Mommy said no. I was still the girl who let him manipulate me. I vouched I would get of here the second I was legal, I would run and never look back. That was before I was locked in a basement where I would forever be five years old, frozen in time.

He lifted my chin with his hand, forcing me to look at his face lit up with spirit.  "Angelina, if you want to survive you have to stop fighting it. Let your mind go."